Saturday, 28 August 2010

A wedding has taken place that was heading for disaster even before the couple make their oath to each other.

Strangers, and those not as intimately involved in the turbulent relationship between the pair, genuinely wish them success in their marriage, but the omens are not favorable.

The bride and groom live just fifteen minutes away from each other, but they wer made to travel thousands of miles to the wedding. The ordaining minister wanted the ceremony to take place at his temple, not in the two families'neighborhood.

The groom has spoken of his determination to make the marriage work. He has even made gestures to prove his intentions.

He did, however, say that if the bride would not marry him he intends to build extensions to his house, and that she can have no claims of that property.

The bride has snubbed her nose at every offering from the groom, saying that it was insufficient for a bride who has suffered so much at the hands of the groom.

Offering her part of the house is not enough for her. The groom should know, she has demanded, that she wants the whole house.

She has snubbed the groom, pointing to a long line of admirers who ply her regularly with gifts and money, far in excess of what he can possibly provide her, and these riches are given without no demands. These constant gifts, she believes, displays unconditional love. She enjoys the pampering, the fine lifestyle, that these suitors have given her.Why should she settle for anything less. Anything that the groom is prepared to give her would require responsibility and accountability on her part, and a degree of self sacrifice. This, she is unwilling to take upon herself.She prefers to maintain that happy state where all she needs to do is to appeal to her lovers as a fragile girl who needs someone to love her, and that is something the groom is unable to do. There has been too much recent history standing in the way.

One insistent desire of the bride is that both parties will share equally the groom's house, or that he hand it over to the bride's family in ownership.This, said the groom, will never happen. The house is legally his and he demands a pre-nuptial agreement to ensure that she has no intentions of taking over his home.

The bride insists that, during the honeymoon period, the groom will not conduct any renovations or extensions as, to her, this would smell of bad intent.

Furthermore, the bride has threatened to storm out of the ceremony, or the honeymoon, if she finds out that workers have moved in.

The bride is apprehensive for another good reason. She has been threatened by those in her family if the marriage is consummated. She is, after all, a Muslim, and the groom is a Jew. This would go against all traditional codes of behaviour. Her sister has already threatened violence. She has witnessed an earlier marriage which resulted in that bride being struck down by her family.Perhaps this is the main reason that this wedding will lead nowhere - ever.

This is a marriage destined for hell. Why is it taking place at all?

Basically because the bride in particular, but also the groom, were dragged, screaming and kicking, to the chuppah against their will by a rabbi (or is he an imam?) who was desperate for a photo opportunity to boost his sagging reputation.

The minister had received a peace ministry award just one day after he was ordained. He had done nothing since to justify this prestigious prize.He now felt that a well publicised ceremony would go a long way to make him look good in the eyes of the award panel.

No matter that he has done little to give this ceremony any confidence. He even publicly slighted the groom in a recent visit. It is the image of a high profile ceremony that is all important to him, not what the two marriage partners do to each other after the wedding pictures have been published.

So what if the couple pull each other to pieces after the service. Other ministers have tried bringing these two together. They have all failed.

True, a couple of invited guests have achieved a fairly successful partnership with the groom's predecessors but the feeling among the congregation will be one of pessimism.

It's probable that the bride and groom will never kiss and make up. They are, after all, two totally different people.

It is more than likely that they will argue and fight each other, forever.

Thursday, 26 August 2010

Israel's Regional Development Minister, Silvan Shalom, toured the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza on Wednesday. He announced that the 250 to 280 trucks a day that flow into Gaza are sufficient to fully supply all Palestinian needs in the Gaza Strip. He also confirmed that the Palestinian Authority have zero demand for any supplies above that number of trucks.

He said, "We often reach a point when there is no longer any demand from the Gazan side. We can provide more, but we don't reach full capacity becuase there is no demand".

In other words, Israel is fully implementing a complete transfer of public and private supplies and equipment into the Gaza Strip that meet all the demands of the population, save for military and materials that can be used for terror purposes.

Shalom said, "We consider the Hamas authority as a hostile authority. Our actions are meant to serve the civilian population, not the Hamas authority and its leaders. We will not allow goods to be used for terrorist activities".

He reiterated that the Kerem Shalom crossing that been targeted by missile and rocket attacks from Gaza and that the people who fired on the supply point were the same people who controlled the illegal smuggling tunnels.

This is vital information that will go a long way in countering future flotilla lies that they wish to supply much needed equipment to Gaza. None is required. It is simply an anti-Israel provocation in support of the Hamas terror regime.

Saturday, 21 August 2010

An interesting story is breaking in Israel.
A group of Israel-advocacy activists are bringing a class action law suit, on behalf of the families of European Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
The interesting aspect is that it is being brought against the British government for 'increasing the scale of the Holocaust'.
Their legal action is based on the tens of thousands of Jewish refugees who were prevented from reaching shelter in the then British-controlled Palestine by the actions of the British navy and army, acting under orders of the British Government.
British policy was to restrict immigration into Palestine. The British sent escaping Jews back to Nazi-occupied Europe where the majority were murdered. This heinous act was depicted in the book/movie 'Exodus'.

The groups researchers say that their evidence shows that up to 30,000 Jews trying to reach Palestine were forced back, by the British, into the arms of the Nazis.
For these Jews, Palestine was the nascent state of the Jewish people, though mandated by the United Nations to Britain.

Tal Tamerin, the lawyer representing the group, will hold a press conference this week from Atlit, site of a British detention camp in Israel.
She will say that the case will be for British recognition of their role in this tragedy and not for damages.

Wednesday, 18 August 2010

It would be wrong to discuss Replacement Theology without including a Jewish perspective which ,basically, is a theologian answer to those who practice Replacement Theology against the Jews.

What is Replacement Theology? In simple terms it dates back to the year 70 when the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed for the second time. This became a crucial principle to the early Christians of that period who interpreted this as a sign that the Jews had been forsaken by their God, that God had turned his back on his Chosen People, and that they were the new chosen race. The Christian nation was perceived to have replaced the Jewish nation.

A essential part of this suppressionist theology is the replacement of the Torah and the Old Testament with the New Testament.

They did not carry both the Old and the New Testament as joint pillars of the new faith. They reject everything that bind the Jews to their faith. They turn away from the Torah, Kabbalah, and other significant teachings and documents that anchored the Jewish people in their unique belief system.

In their mind. the Jewish nation has been replaced by the Christian nation. There is no theology on which to base Christian theology except the New Testament. Canon law is based on this alone.

Christian charity replaced Jewish chesed (charity). The Jews were the first to adopt charity to others. In ancient times, charity was unknown to the heathens. While Jews sent money from around the world for centuries to a destroyed temple in Jerusalem the concept of charity was unknown to pagans and Christians. Charity, or taxes, is what you gave to the church to enable it to grow in power and influence. The rest they took in conquest.

When the Crusaders rode off to claim the Holy Land for the Roman Catholic Church it was a clear declaration of replacement theology. They may have been defeated by the Islamic army of Saladin but it was the Jews that were the main target of the invading European Crusaders. They went to conquer the Holy Land, the land of Christ, from the Jews. It was to be a sign that Christianity had replaced the Jewish nation in the Holy Land.

This point is vitally important to understand as it has echoes on what is happening today.

The dogma of replacement theology led to the claim that the Jews killed Christ. At that time this message was simple. You are either with us, or you are on the side of the Christ-killer.
Absolute dogma is a must for their faith system,

Throughout Europe, a repressive Church persecuted the Jew. Jews that were not converted were killed or, in the case of Clifford’s Tower in York in 1190, committed mass suicide rather than renounce their faith. The Spanish Inquisition tortured Jews who refused to convert and be baptized.

A lighthearted story is told of a rabbi who was forced to convert to Catholicism under pain of death. One Friday night the Cardinal was riding by the home of this rabbi when he smelled the rich aroma of a Jewish Shabbat meal coming from the house.
“What is this!”, he erupted to the Jew. “You maintain your Judaism which is punishable by death. You know it is forbidden to eat meat on Friday according to our laws. You must die for your disloyalty!”
“No, your Holiness”, the Jew pleaded. “This is not meat, it is fish”.
“Do you take me for a fool”, shouted the Cardinal, who pointed to one of his guards. “Taste this man’s food and tell me if it is meat or fish”, he ordered.
The guard tasted the meal and announced that it was indeed meat.
“Take this man away and kill him!”, ordered the cardinal.
“No, wait!” shouted the rabbi. “Surely you sprinkled water over me and told me that I was no longer a Jew, but a Catholic. Is that not so?”
The Cardinal agreed.
“Then that is exactly what I did with my meal. I sprinkled water on my plate and declared that it was not meat, that it was fish! If your water works for you, then it works for me.”

There was one unsuccessful chapter in history when Napoleon Bonaparte attempted to enlarge his empire by capturing the Holy Land. He declared that he went to liberate this land for the Jewish people. He was defeated at the battle of Acre in 1799.
Napoleon believed that the Holy Land rightfully belonged to the Jews who had been removed and replaced by force. As such, Napoleon Bonaparte can be considered an early Christian Zionist.

There are two trains of thought within Judaism regarding Israel as ‘Am Segula’, the Chosen People. The Babylonian Talmud is replete with discourse between sages. Rabbi Ramchal taught that God created the world with the Torah. There were no Chosen People at that time. God waited to see which nation would choose His Laws and stand up to the test that He would put to that nation. It was the Jews that were tested through Abraham and later Moses. According to Ramchal the nation of Israel were not the Chosen People, they were the Choosing Nation. They chose the Laws of the one God, rather than idol worship or paganism. God sealed this Covenant, this Brit.

On the other hand, Mahalal said that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and that the world was created for the Jewish nation. In his interpretation, Berashit (the Beginning) refers to the Jewish people. God gave the Torah to the Jewish nation. He chose us. We are His Chosen People.

Whichever of these theories is selected the one fact remains, the Jewish People are His Chosen People and no one can break this bond.

This bond had been a burden. Jews have been tested, and are being tested today. A cynical Jewish joke has one Jew moaning, “I know we are the Chosen People but couldn’t He choose someone else for a change?”

Yet the Jews stubbornly clung to their faith. Throughout the ages the Jew has been perceived as a threat to those who preach replacement theology, whether they be Catholic, Christian, or Muslim.

If anything is more of a threat to their dogma than the Jew, it is Israel.

How is it possible that despite centuries of rejection, persecution, conversion, genocide, and finally, the Holocaust, not only does the Jew continue to exist but he rises from the ashes in the miracle of the Jewish State of Israel.

For those who cling to replacement theology, Israel is a slap in the face.
It's existence defies all their teachings, all their belief systems.

They watched as Arab armies came to destroy the fledging nation of refugees. They expected the fight over Israel to be the final death throe of the remnants of the Holocaust. This would have put the final victorious nail in the coffin of any Jewish ability to claim to be the Chosen People. Christianity stood aside as Muslim armies tried, several times, to destroy the Jewish nation in the name of Islamic replacement theology. For the Christian spectators, the Arab armies were the modern day Crusaders.

The impossible happened. The Jews not only defended their tiny and tender nation, they won, and won again. Not only did they win, they emerged stronger than ever.

The nation of Israel grew, it developed, it attracted an influx of persecuted Jews from the four corners of the globe. Hebrew, again, became the national language of the Jewish state.

And Jerusalem was recaptured as the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

The replacement theologists, including those of the British Anglican Church, Presbyterians, Methodists, and others regrouped.
They began to intone pious feelings for the oppressed and the suffering, personified by the Palestinians.
They condemned Israel for all the ills of the world. The murder of Jews and decades of terrorism against innocent Israelis were excused as the justified reaction of an oppressed people.
Murdered Jews and Israelis, horrendous and inhumane acts of terrorism in the name of Allah, do not give these people pause.

On a day when the Archbishop of Canterbury was on his way to visit Yasser Arafat, he received a message to say that one of Arafat’s terrorists had killed Israelis in yet another Palestinian suicide attack in Israel. Instead of turning round and visiting the families of the dead victims in an act of condolence and sympathy, Dr.Rowen Williams continued to have tea and biscuits with the executioner.
On Arafat’s death, this pontiff confirmed the ‘abiding strength of the Anglican commitment to the Palestinian people’.
No such commitment has been given to the Jewish people of Israel.

Replacement theology lies at the deep heart of Islam. Their problem is they not only want to replace the Jew, or destroy him, they also want to replace everything, including Christianity, or permit them to exist as a subjugated dhimmi of Islamic will..

There may not be overt anti-Semitism in the New Testament but it is rampant in the Koran. The Jew is the express enemy of Islam. The Koran calls for the killing of the Jew as a holy command.

It is the hierarchy and the agressive activists of extreme Islam that, literally, call the shots and the initial target is the Jewish state.
Suddenly, Palestine in place of Israel has become a holy Muslim crusade. All the cries to battle are couched in Islamic terms and in the name of Allah. Palestinian murderers are glorified as holy martyrs. Many fervently believe that there is no finer glory than martyrdom as long as Jews and Israelis are killed to pave the way to paradise.

They all plot, plan, live, breath, and die with the burning desire to replace the evil Zionist state with the Islamic kingdom of Palestine.

What is the placement of the Al Aksa Mosque, directly on top of the ruins of the two ancient Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, if not a statement of replacement theology?

It says to the Jews that we, the Muslims, have come to replace you.
Citizens of New York and America take heed.

For the Palestinians, Anti-Semitism is their pinnacle article of faith. From the Grand Mufti al-Husseini who sided with Hitler, learned the art of the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem by visiting Auschwitz, the Jews were a nation to be destroyed. Here again is an example of Islamic replacement theology against the Jews.

Recently the Muslim Wakf, guardian of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, desecrated the antiquities under the Temple Mount. They bulldozed all the archeological remains of King Solomon’s Stables and Jewish artifacts and replaced it with a massive underground mosque. This archeological replacement is replacement theology. It allowed Yasser Arafat to tell President Clinton at Camp David that the Jews never existed and there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

The current president, Mahmoud Abbas is a Holocaust denier, according to the degree he took in Moscow. He has also denied any Jewish heritage to Jerusalem, echoing Arafat.

The Palestinian narrative is replacement theology. Their language confuses Israel and the Jew. For them it is the same. Anti-Semitic and racist pronouncements are broadcast on their state television channels, in their mosques, at their official ceremonies, in their schools. They do not condemn Israel. They condemn the Jew.

This replacement theology is being adopted by many churches, but they disguise it in careful humanitarian terms. For both the Muslims and dogmatic Christians, the success and advancement of the Jewish nation state is an insult to their core beliefs.

As far back as 1974 Archbishop Hilarion Capucci was convicted for weapons smuggling to Palestinian terrorists. These weapons had one target, the Jews of Israel.

On a stamp in his honour, issued by Syria in 1976, the blood red Palestinian state has replaced Israel.

Archbishop Capucci participated in June of this year in a flotilla. The organizers of every Free Gaza flotilla share one burning core belief, to replace Israel.
It is not Gaza they wish to free, it is Israel.

The Christian and Catholic theologians replace Israel , the real victim of decades of war, terror, humiliation, with a rabid Islamic enemy that desires nothing more than the eradication of the Jewish nation. They do so in a perfidious manner, by portraying the aggressor as the victim and the oppressed, and the defending Jewish nation is portrayed as the criminal.

Historically, they sided with an Islamic enemy even as it desecrated one of Christianity’s most holy sites, as did Palestinian gunmen in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in April 2002.

They side with Islamic terrorists who terrorize and kill their fellow religionists. They turn aside as their Muslim allies destroy their bibles and their churches. They do so because they believe they share a common enemy, Israel. What is this if not anti-Semitism?

There are thousands of Christians who do not share, even rebel against, this dogma. Many more are ardent supporters of Israel, based on their religious upbringing.

Christians fled Europe to escape a rigid belief that they could not share.

Many found haven in America where they spread the message of a Golden age that can only come about when the Jews return to Zion.

They feared persecution for holding beliefs that were against the mainstream church. Their principle of faith was anchored in the belief that their Messiah will not return until the Jews are redeemed to Zion, Israel. Israel today does not have finer advocates than these people who passionately share the Zionist dream. Many call themselves Christian Zionists.

There are some who are trying to fight for justice within the Methodist and Presbyterians churches. They are finding, as I did, that there is a stone wall, a deaf ear, which is not prepared to let in any conflicting opinion.

I was once invited by a couple of Christian Zionists to give a talk at their Scottish church in Edinburgh. I told them that the name of my talk was to be ‘Making the Case for Israel’. They told me, with regret and embarrassment, that their pastor refused to have me speak in his church on this subject. I suppose this was one of the first anti-Israel boycotts in Scotland. Since then, several churches have come out with anti-Israeli boycott and divestment resolutions, even as Palestinians and others are persecuting their co-religionists, while Israel is the one Middle East country with a growing Christian population.

The problem, from an Israeli perspective, is that a number of Christian and Catholic churches, as well as their NGOs, have been hijacked by the more actively theologians.

Heads of Christian churches and NGOs overlook and forgive the desecration of their holy places by Palestinians and other Islamic regimes, yet condemn Israel for protecting its citizens from decades of war and terror, mainly Islamic in nature.

There is something perverse in a Christianity joining Islamic jihad against the Jews. What is this if not anti-Semitism?

Replacement theology is steeped in anti-Semitism. When it is applied today, under the cloak of sanctimonious and hypocritical human rights concerns, it remains anti-Semitic at its core.

A Christianity that identifies so completely, and so one-sidedly, with an entity that is coming to replace them, is so utterly incomprehensible.
Yet, they do so to the core of their being, rejecting all and any appeal to open-mindedness, or even to consider the other side. Is that Christian compassion? Or is it rigid dogma?

I wrote this article in August 2010. Everything that happened since confirmed how right I was.

In late September I had a meeting at a kibbutz guest house not far from Zichron Yaakov with a group of visiting Christian Zionists. They were all ministers and members of the British Methodist Church. They were all appalled at a resolution to boycott Israel that they felt had been steamrolled through their annual convention by some of their leadership. There is a split in the Methodist Church and these worthy souls had come on a spiritual pilgrimage to Israel.

We had a prolonged and intimate conversation. We did not avoid the hard issues, and I offered help and advise as to how it may be possible to bring some light into their churches deliberations.
Toward the end of our meeting I plucked up the courage to ask them the question that had been burning inside me.

"Is Replacement Theology at the heart of your leadership's postion on Israel.?"
" Oh, absolutely!"
The reply came unanimously, as soon as I had placed the question.

Then, in October, at a Vatican Synod on the Middle East, an American Archbishop, Cyril Salim Butros, said
"We Christians cannot speak about the Promised Land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a Chosen People. The concept of the Promised Land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of the Jews to Israel".

It's an amazing thing when I am having my beliefs dictated to me by a Catholic priest. I am reminded of the Vatican's abysmal record during World War Two which was silent at best and collaborative with the Nazis at worst. Now they choose to speak out against the centuries old bond between the Jewish people and Israel?

For decades the anti-Semites have been forced into silence by the shock, revulsion, and conscience of the world to the Holocaust of the Jews. Now, with the passing of time and the development of the State of Israel, it is again funding it's voice.
The words of Butros are clearly against the Jews. To speak against the Jews is anti-Semitism, per se. Replacement Theology is anti-Semitism. Case closed!

The success of the Jewish state illuminates the failure of replacement theology.

The rise and rise of the Jewish state of Israel raises uncomfortable questions for the replacement theologists. If the Jew, after all his history, is still able to protect himself, build a new nation, and grow in strength, what am I? It is a question that they prefer, for now, to avoid.

The answer confirms one of the priciples of the Jews reason for being, of Israel's growing success. It announces to him that, maybe, God is protecting his people.

It justifies the view of Christian Zionists that their leaders, their church, should really be working to support the Jewish return to their ancient homeland, instead of trying to replace them.

For the Jew there is nothing but to keep the faith, stay strong, believe in Torat Emet (the true Torah), and eternal life.

The 'abusive' pictures of suspected terrorists waiting to go for interrogation and a not so intelligent soldier girl sitting next to them went the media rounds this week.

A number of Western TV outlets, adopted the usual knee-jerk condemnation of Israel, trying to compare our soldiers to theirs, if not actually making them out be worse.

It is a huge leap to go from this to the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib by American and British soldiers.

Of course, the standard line is to make out Israeli soldiers to be the most brutal military on the face of the earth, far worse than the courageous young men bravely fighting for our lives in far off Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the record, the girl did not lay a finger on any of the detainees. She didn't even speak to them.

All she did, for her sins, was have a bunch of pictures taken so that she could show her friends on facebook that she had served, face to face, with suspected terrorists. She was, after all, smiling to put a brave face on what was undoubtedly an unpleasant experience.

In this perspective, the picture looks different. It shows an Israeli soldier girl who is serving our country in a harsh environment, pictured with dangerous men who are suspected of infiltrating into Israel to carry out terror attacks against our civilians, or belonging to a terror organisation.

Monday, 16 August 2010

Well, now I can tell you that Israel is the most democratic nation on earth.

We have just had a Knesset member tell the world that Peres is not her President and Israel is not her country.

Haneen Zoabi, a member of Balad, the Arab Communist Party, sailed on the infamous Mavi Marmara from Turkey with the IHH terror group in the Gaza flotilla.

On BBC's Hardtalk, and in Britain's Parliament, she described herself as Palestinian.

Yet there she sits in Israel's Parliament, rejecting our country and our president, and joining with those who wish to destroy us. Instead of loyalty to the country of her birth she acts like a traitor. Yet there she sits, in our Knesset, and taunts us.

Israel must be the finest democracy in the world - or the most stupid!

In an interview with Lebanon's Al-Nahar newspaper website he said, "The conflict with Israel will ALWAYS exist!"

Coming from the second ranked person in the Syrian hierarchy this is an official announcement of permanent enmity with Israel.

Following my recent article 'Palestinians don't want peace!' this further cements the hard line front against the Jewish state.

Add to this the violence and threats against Israel from the extremists controlling Hizbollah, Hamas, Turkey, and Iran, the Middle East neighbourhood is openly displaying a total rejection of any peace agreement with Israel.

The Palestinian Authority refuses to hold direct talks with Israel. This reflects the objection to peace with Israel from the majority of Palestinian groups and factions. Even if Mahmoud Abbas is dragged into discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu this will be a fig leaf gesture to the Obama Administration with no possible positive outcome. The Arab League who, supposedly, is pressuring Abbas to talk with Israel are currently lobbying the United States to vote against Israel on the nuclear issue.

America must learn the levontine shouk mentality that has the Arabs agreeing to push Abbas into talks with Israel while whispering in his ear that he can push for maximum demands but need to accept them if granted.It is basically a trade off with America. They push Abbas into the room and America votes against Israel. The result is a two to zero victory for the peace rejectionists and a weakened Israel.

Meanwhile the Hate Israel, Anti-Peace lobby is becoming larger and more vociferous. If these voices become louder, if these voices go unchecked, war is bound to follow.

Sunday, 15 August 2010

You would think that the Palestinians would rush to seize every opening in order to establish their much vaunted dream of a state of their own.Not so.

In the past Yasser Arafat bowed to international pressure and went to Camp David. Ehud Barak had to push him into the negotiating room in a much publicised picture that included a smiling President Clinton.Clinton, and the American team, were amazed at the far reaching concessions that Barak was prepared to make in the name of Israel. The only problem was that Arafat could not bring himself to accept statehood for the Palestinians on these terms.It was in Camp David negotiations that Clinton realised Arafat was stuck in the Arab rhetoric that says there is no Jewish history, no Jewish heritage, that Jews have no claim to the land they possess because it belongs, in its entirety, to Islam in the name of Palestine.Against that type of mindset, no peace is possible between the two sides.

The diplomatic failure was immediately followed by what is known as the Second Intifada, initiated by Arafat. This violence was Arafat's way of announcing to the world that the Palestinian people will continue the struggle until all their 'occupied land' will be liberated.

Has anything changed since the passing of Arafat? Yes, the situation has gotten worse.Now the Palestinian factions are at each others throats. American imposed elections displayed what the democratic process is like, Palestinian-style.The Palestinians voted for a Hamas government knowing that they stood for the destruction of the Jewish state by force and the imposition of Islamic Shariah law.Fatah, the corrupt party of Arafat, clung to power and, to appease the electorate, maintained 'the armed struggle against the Zionist enemy' in its infamous Charter.

The newly elected Palestinian Authority tried to establish law and order throughout the Palestinian territories released to them by Israel, including the whole of the Gaza Strip. Israel was still traumatised by the sight of Israeli police and soldiers physically forcing Jews out of their homes. This unilateral move was the idea of Arik Sharon, the then Israeli Prime Minister. As with Yizhak Rabin before him, Sharon surrendered his core beliefs regarding Israel's security for political expediency, by imposing a unilateral withdrawal of thousands of Israelis from Gaza settlements, as a one-sided peace gesture to show the Palestinians how serious Israel is for peace and for a two state solution.

Hamas stepped into this vacuum with a brutal political and military coup throughout the Gaza Strip. Many Palestinians were killed by fellow Palestinians. Hamas members threw Fatah members off rooftops to their deaths. Others were lined up and shot as Hamas imposed their control over the area.

Since then, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets into Israel from the very settlements that were vacated by Israel in the name of peace.They seized Gilad Shalit by infiltrating into Israel and kidnapping him. Shalit has been isolated from the world for more than four years, against all human rights conventions.They continue to call for the eradication of the Jewish state and have refused to compromise on any of their hard line beliefs even in the name of Palestinian harmony.

Despite a massive improvement in living conditions both in the West Bank and in Gaza, thanks to unprecedented aid and funding given without any pre-conditions by the international community, neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority under the reign of Mahmoud Abbas are willing to renounce their long held ambition to eliminate Israel.This remains their deeply rooted political and religious ambition.

Israel, for them, is a temporary curse that will disappear.

While the international community continues to fund their middle class lifestyle, the Palestinian leadership, both in Ramallah and in Gaza, are in no hurry to consider a lasting peace agreement with Israel.Abbas may be making the rounds while Haniya and Khalid Mashal play hardball, but even he is resisting direct talks with Israel.

Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has accepted a two state solution. He has agreed that the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state of Israel with both entities living in peace and security is a desirable aim to solve the ongoing conflict.

The Palestinians, however, are not prepared to compromise. Abbas may be brought, kicking and screaming like Arafat, into direct talks with Israel in the coming days, but nobody has any realistic hopes that he will agree a final settlement.He may try to extract further concessions from an amiable Israel, but he knows that he is unable, and unwilling, to sign any permanent peace contract.

Palestinian statehood, in Palestinian eyes, will only be fully and finally established on the ashes of the Jewish state.Palestine, in Palestinian eyes, will replace Israel.The Palestinian leadership does not want peace with Israel. They want peace without Israel.No Palestinian leader can accept anything less.

Palestinian schoolchildren are taught that the Zionist state sits on holy Palestinian land and will be removed by armed struggle and martyrdom. Israel does not appear in their geography schoolbooks. Palestinian state television broadcasts anti-Semitic and anti-Israel programs that spout hatred and death. Main streets and sports facilities are named in honor of suicide bombers. Terrorists are glorified in poems, songs, and wall graffiti throughout the Palestinian territory. Palestinians are being prepared for future conflict to eliminate the Zionist enemy.

With breathless idiocy, the world continues to support both Palestinian factions with record amounts of aid and money, but without imposing any conditions for peace making.By doing this, they perpetuate the status quo.Such funding and support is irresponsible and feeds the Palestinian belief that the world stands with them in their struggle to replace Israel.

Let's face it. The Palestinians don't want peace, and the world is encouraging and supporting them.

Friday, 13 August 2010

Revelations of horrendous crimes committed by Turkey against the Kurds are only the latest in a long catalogue of Turkish regional violence that has gone unpunished.

From the massacre, some will say genocide, of more than one million Armenians to the murder of Greek Cypriots and the continuing occupation of northern Cyprus to the more recent violent provocation by attacking Israel’s legal blockade of Gaza. The ships may have been manned by the Turkish IHH but the hand of Prime Minister Erdogan was clearly on the steering wheel of the Mavi Marmara.

Turkey has evaded justice for these crimes, but the terrible use of chemical weapons on Kurdish people, including two women, and then attempting to cover up this heinous crime by ripping the bodies to pieces, brought back memories of Saddam Hussein.

Photographic evidence of these war crimes is in the hands of the major news agencies who claim that they are so appalling they refuse to print them. German experts have confirmed the authenticity of these pictures and Kurdish witnesses can identify the victims.

It is inconceivable that Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan did not know of, if not order, these terrible crimes.

In the last year he has imposed his chosen officers to the hierarchy of the Turkish military. It is impossible that he would not have been informed of and approved the use of chemical warfare against the Kurds.

Erdogan has been quick to accuse Israel of all sorts of abuses. He insulted President Peres at Davos, accusing him of war crimes in Gaza. He insisted that Israel ‘must pay the price’ over the recent flotilla incident.

Now it is Erdogan’s turn to pay the price.

As with Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in Fallujah, Erdogan must not escape justice for this crime against humanity.

Erdogan must learn that what is good for Israel is good for Turkey. Therefore, the United Nations Human Rights Council must appoint a Goldstone investigation into Turkish war crimes.

When the evidence is in, the leading Turkish perpetrators must be brought before the International Court of Justice at the Hague to face justice.

Nothing less can be acceptable.

Erdogan has been behaving like a drunken bully in recent years. His embrace of Iran and Syria has given him the confidence and boldness to act and speak in a brazen manner.

Turkish impunity to its past history and recent events, linked to support by dangerous allies and the cheers of local Turks and many regional citizens, has led Erdogan to believe that he is impervious to any accountability.

Why not? He sees his friends in Hamas and Hizbollah cock their noses at the world while gaining in political power and military strength and continue to enact their crimes and terror against Israelis and their own people.

He thinks that an Islamic embrace will protect him from facing war crimes charges.

If the international community has any vestige of honor or conscience, Turkish crimes against the Kurds must urgently be investigated and those responsible be brought to justice.

Thursday, 12 August 2010

When are you going to be convinced of the fraud being perpetrated by the Palestinians in Gaza and those who support Hamas?

When are you going to take action to stop the massive abuse of funding and aid that has strengthened the Islamic terror regime in Gaza?

Go to my facebook wall, see the evidence, learn the facts, make a switch in your thinking, and begin to tell the world that you have been lied to.

Join my cause

PALESTINIAN FUNDING IS OBSCENE, INSANE, IMMORAL !

PS. The icon picture of our cause depicts an African child who is silently dying of hunger.
Why?
Because your money goes to maintain an Islamic terror regime in middle class Gaza while children who are dying of malnutrition and disease in Africa are ignored.
Because he is the victim of 'humanitarian' abuse and fraud.
Nobody hears his cry. Nobody wipes away his tears.

While Palestinian kids play with laptops, enjoy water parks, go shopping in the fully stocked shopping malls, eat well, and are taught Hamas hate education against the Jews and Israel..

Now will you act to have humanitarian funds diverted to those who truly deserve it?

Tuesday, 3 August 2010

In a world that has seen so many organisations and groups spring up known as 'Rabbis for every cause under the sun except the Jewish State of Israel', it came as a relief to hear about the founding of 'RABBIS FOR ISRAEL'.

This new movement is the brainchild of Rabbi Michael Boyden.
Michael is the spiritual head of Kehilat Yonatan Reform Congregation in Hod HaSharon in central Israel. He is also the director of the National Rabbinic Court of the Israel Council of Progressive Rabbis.

The facebook message from this movement says "Rabbis for Israel is a forum of rabbis from all streams, who are deeply concerned by the drift in much of world opinion that has made it legitimate to single out Israel for blame and censure in respect of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict".

Explaining the event which stirred Rabbi Boyden into forming this group was the coverage of the recent Turkish flotilla incident by the international media.

"It was clear that many within Jewish communities did not understand what Israel is dealing with, and the complexities of issues here", he explained to the Jerusalem Post.

One remarkable early achievement for Rabbis for Israel has been the signatures of Othodox, Conservative, Reform, ReConstructionist, and Chabad rabbis to the movements mission statement.

The statement emphasises 'that Israel has a legitimate right to exist as a soverign, democratic, Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. We support a peaceful and just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will recognise two independent states, a Jewish state of Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace, security, and prosperity".

"We call upon the Arab and Muslim world to accept unequivocally and publicly Israel's permanent right to exist in peace".

"Any resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict will require Israel to cede sovereignty over most of the West Bank and will need to address the aspirations of both Israeli and Palestinians concerning Jerusalem, a city that is holy to three religions".

The rabbis appealed to both Christian and Muslim religious leaders "to establish frameworks within their own communities to oppose messages of hatred and violence against Israel, to work toward developing a spirit of mutual understanding, tolerance, and peace with Jews, and to encourage the strengthening of peaceful relationships and partnerships between Israelis and Palestinians".

Michael Boyden is reaching out to rabbis worldwide.
" The upcoming High Holidays are an opportunity to pass on the message and talk about the reality of conflict with their communities".

Any religious leader wishing to make contact with Rabbis for Israel should contact Rabbi Michael Boyden directly, or through me and I will pass your message to Michael.